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Reaper Battle Walker
There is a popular postwar saying in the Soviet Union that translates to, "Hey, we tried." It was first uttered by a team of Sickle gunners on their ignoble return to base after the Allies' attack on Berlin. This led to a series of feel-good propaganda printings from the humiliated Soviet government to its shaken people (essentially an extravagant get-well card that cost the nation half of its remaining treasury). The image of a Sickle personified as a very sad-looking and bruised ice hockey player, with tears in its eyes and with one of its legs in a cast, became iconic throughout the war-torn Soviet Union. But even though thousands of Sickles met their crushing defeat in the war, this did not stop the Soviet Ministry of Experimental Science from moving to refurbish an older and less reliable prototype in an effort to maintain a modicum of defensive capability, and to remain solvent as a business. That prototype, commonly known as the Reaper, was known to have only a fraction of its better-known cousin's maneuverability, as well as a crippling design flaw in its legs... a prime example of the self-deprecating "Hey, we tried" attitude so prevalent in the Soviet Union. The Reaper is like a bigger, burlier version of the Sickle. Instead of the Sickle's signature heavy machine guns, the Reaper features three independently-articulated grenade launchers. In addition to that, a swivel-mounted rocket launcher is mounted to the top of the Reaper's canopy, and its tracking system turns out to be sophisticated enough to lock onto fast targets such as aircraft. Furthermore, the Reaper is built from a similar alloy to Soviet main battle tanks, so in spite of its somewhat clunky appearance, it is sturdier than the Sickle. If all this is to be believed, then the question becomes, why did the Kazminov Design Bureau (the Sickle's manufacturer) favor the less-powerful model and throw the other one away? One theory is both cynical and steeped in stereotype: The Soviets like cutting corners. The Sickle was cheaper to produce in bulk, and the Reaper had a few kinks not found in its lighter, quicker relative. So the Sickle went into mass-production, while the Reaper would be sold off to the Ministry for a cheap sum. The Reaper's crude, inflexible walking mechanism, high profile, and lack of true internal stabilization made it basically useless on the battlefield; there was many tried and tested designs that performed better, and quite a few experimental ones as well, such as the Thresher. Moreover, the targeting systems for the weapons were dysfunctional to the point of uselessness; in one case, a walker accidentally unloaded an entire barrage on a Conscript, only for the man to survive unscathed. When push came to shove, Soviet command allocated the money to the Thresher project instead of to fixing up and manufacturing the Reaper, stating a need to stop looking back for the solutions. As the budget report stated; "The reintroduction of ten year old equipment is a stopgap, not a solution. This committee would rather have a single combat effective Thresher on the field than a dozen malfunctioning Reapers." Behind the Scenes The Reaper, as with any Uprising Unit, will not feature in the game. Category:Lore